title: What, where and when: deconstructing memory.
abstract: The ability of animals to remember the what, where and when of a unique past event is used as an animal equivalent to human episodic memory. We currently view episodic memory as reconstructive, with an event being remembered in the context in which it took place. Importantly, this means that the components of a what, where, when memory task should be dissociable (e.g. what would be remembered to a different degree than when). We tested this hypothesis by training hummingbirds to a memory task, where the location of a reward was specified according to colour (what), location (where), and order and time of day (when). Although hummingbirds remembered these three pieces of information together more often than expected, there was a hierarchy as to how they were remembered. When seemed to be the hardest to remember, while errors relating to what were more easily corrected. Furthermore, when appears to have been encoded as a combination of time of day and sequence information. As hummingbirds solved this task using reconstruction of different memory components (what, where and when), we suggest that similar deconstructive approaches may offer a useful way to compare episodic and episodic-like memories.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, , St Andrews, UK, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, , St Andrews, UK, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, , Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, , Edinburgh, UK.
authors.forename: Rachael E S
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Marshall
authors.forename: T Andrew
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Hurly
authors.forename: Jenny
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sturgeon
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Shuker
authors.forename: Susan D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Healy
mesh_terms: D000416:Alberta; D000818:Animals; D001717:Birds / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: cognition; episodic-like memory; hummingbird; memory reconstruction; what–where–when